Spent a chilly Monday afternoon (August 26) on a fun short multi pitch sport route, "Godzilla". Quote from Gripped website, where Brandon Pullan is the editor.
"Godzilla is a new 5.9 four-pitch all-bolted route on Kanga Crag above Upper Grassi Lakes parking area in Canmore. There are now three fun multi-pitch routes on the small wall above the pond.
The first ascent was in June 2018 by Dave Smart and Brandon Pullan with later route cleaning help from Re Cairney, James Walter, John Price and Cory Rogans.
Like all Rockies’ routes, there will be loose and flaky rocks for a few seasons and don’t throw any big boulders off because they might reach the road below. If you’re not comfortable climbing on loose rock then stick to older, better travelled multi-pitch routes."
Brandon has set quite a few new multi pitch in the past 5 to 10 years. On this wall, Kanga Crag, Brandon set "Sharknado" (5.9, 100m, 4 pitches) and "Hot Fuzz" (5.8, 80m, 2 pitches). Laurie and I have climbed all three of these routes, compared to Sharknado, the 5.9 pitches on Godzilla are more difficult. Overall a fun route with super easy access and very close to Canmore. We had a bit of trouble finding the base of route, but eventually got on track. I lead the first pitch, very fun and straightforward 5.7.
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View up pitch one, Good fun. |
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View down pitch one from station. |
Laurie had fun on the crux, the 5.9 crux is solid for the grade, probably many would say more than 5.9, but the crux is short and well protected.
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View up start of pitch two. |
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Laurie has rounded the corner, the crux is actually out of sight. |
I did the third pitch, fun 5.8. Laurie did the last 5.9 pitch, which had one or two 5.9 moves, with the rest being more like 5.7. we did the four rappels to get off the route. Great day out.
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View up start of pitch three. |
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View to last pitch. |
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Crux moves of pitch 4. |
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Rapping off pitch 4 on the way down. |